the philharmonia orchestra of yale peter oundjian
Principal Conductor
January 27, 2017 • Friday at 7:30 pm Woolsey Hall
giancarlo guerrero guest conductor
richard wagner Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90 Prelude Liebestod intermission dimitri shostakovich Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 I. Moderato II. Allegro III. Allegretto — Largo — Piú mosso IV. Andante — Allegro — L’istesso tempo
As a courtesy to others, please silence all cell phones and devices. Photography and recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.
Robert Blocker, Dean
p rog ra ram notes P m N otes
Richard Wagner » 1813–1883 Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90 The legend of Tristan and Isolde, told for centuries by the Celtics, evolved into many versions when it became popular in mainland Europe in the 12th century. Particularly attractive to Richard Wagner was the version by the medieval German author Gottfried von Strassburg in which the Irish princess, Isolde, and the English Knight, Tristan, accidentally take a love potion and are doomed to fulfill their love only in death. In a letter to Franz Liszt, sent in 1854, Wagner wrote: “Since I have never in my life tasted the true happiness of love, I intend to raise a monument to this most beautiful of dreams.” His marriage in 1836 to actress Minna Planer was troubled from the start. A relationship marred with infidelities and financial troubles, the summer of 1857 would put it to its final test. Wagner and his wife accepted an invitation from friends and patrons Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck in 1857 to lodge in a cottage on their estate in Leipzig. Wagner and Mathilde found in each other intimately kindred spirits, possibly prompting Wagner to put aside his work on Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring cycle), nearly a decade in the making, to begin his encomium to insatiable love and unquenchable passion, Tristan und Isolde. The fodder for Wagner’s work intensified as his love and obsession for Mathilde deepened. The impossibility of his forbidden passion was amplified and projected into the story and music of his opera. Tonight’s performance includes the Prelude and the Liebestod, or lovedeath, the final scene of the opera. Tristan und Isolde is one of Wagner’s most symphonically oriented operas, making these selections, together, viable and convincing as a symphonic concert piece. Throughout the opera, the drama rests more in the orchestra than in the vocals and staging. Though Wagner was certainly not the first composer to push the boundaries of traditional tonal harmony, the opening of the Prelude is viewed as one of the first major affronts to western tonality. It sets in motion a meandering web of chromaticism that in its rejection of traditional resolution simulates the plight of the two lovers.
In his own program notes of the Prelude and Liebestod as a concert unit, Wagner wrote that the story is one of “endless yearning, longing, the bliss and wretchedness of love; the exhausted heart sinks back, to pine away in a longing that can never attain its end, since each attainment brings in its wake only renewed desire, till in final exhaustion the breaking eye catches a glimpse of the attainment of the highest bliss: the bliss of dying.” In the Shakespearean tradition, tragedies end with the death of the protagonists and comedies end with reconciliations or marriages. Tristan and Isolde die, tragically, but with their deaths, true love abounds. The toils and tensions set out by the Prelude are only fully resolved in the final measures of the Liebestod, when the two lovers, represented by the oboes, unite and prevail in death. It is a tragedy of the flesh but a comedy of the soul.
Dmitri Shostakovich » 1906–1975 Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 Dmitri Shostakovich kept a suitcase packed in anticipation of his arrest during much of the 1930s and ’40s, an epoch of terror at the outset of Stalin’s reign. During this time the composer lost countless friends, family, and colleagues to imprisonment and execution under Stalin’s purges and waited for the day that his music would tip the precarious balance out of his favor. In 1936, Shostakovich withdrew his Fourth Symphony before its premiere after Stalin had publicly denounced him as an anti-proletarian and formalist in reaction to the composer’s opera Lady Macbeth and his ballet Limpid Stream. In response to the denunciation, Shostakovich wrote film music, one of Stalin’s favorite genres, and prepared his Fifth Symphony, which he called "a Soviet artist's creative response to just criticism.” With this work, considerably more conservative, clear, and rejoiceful than the prior symphony, he won back the favor of the party. Officials celebrated its “socialist realism.” To applaud it was politically advantageous; it proved that the party could make any artist bow to its demands — that it could reward as wholly and irrevocably as it could punish. Shostakovich’s years as the musical darling of the party were numbered. With his Ninth Symphony came a second denunciation in 1948 — surely a death knell for the composer and his family. However, the party’s vitriol was fickle. In need of an artistic representative for a western conference, Stalin sent Shostakovich, who rehabilitated his standing with a forced public apology. After this scuffle, Shostakovich avoided publishing symphonies for years. With Stalin’s death in 1953, Shostakovich’s collar loosened and he quickly prepared for the premiere of his Tenth Symphony. Audiences and analysts speculated for years over its meaning until a memoir titled Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich as Related to and Edited by Solomon Volkov seemed to resolve the uncertainty in 1979. In it, Shostakovich was quoted as saying: “I did depict Stalin in my next Symphony, the Tenth. I wrote it right after [his] death… It’s about Stalin and the Stalin years.” While the authenticity of the book has been disputed, the timeline of Stalin's death and the premiere of the Tenth Symphony lend credibility to the claim.
The first movement, encompassing nearly half of the piece’s duration, is brooding, laden with silences indicative of the music’s uncertainty. The second movement, a portrait of Stalin, is a petite and savage scherzo. Shostakovich undoubtedly knew that the movement might be interpreted as a testament to the “great” leader’s vivacious and dynamic energy, but to him it most likely represented the despot’s ruthlessness and capriciousness. The third movement excessively employs the DSCH motif, the composer’s initials translated into musical notation. Less obvious, however, was his incorporation of the motif ELMIRA, the name of one of his most promising students, with whom he had fallen in love. The DSCH motif is dispensed with maniacally, his signature on the bloody caricature of the tyrant. The ELMIRA motif however, offered by the horn playing pianissimo, is a glimmer of hope amid the terrifying madness. The finale begins in a barren landscape and quickly jolts into a frantic allegro. The massive climax is invigorated by the composer’s DSCH signature in the horns and trumpets, his veiled call of victory over the wicked regime. – Julia Clancy
a rtt i st st Profi p rofiles Ar le
Giancarlo Guerrero, guest conductor Giancarlo Guerrero is the music director of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, a post he assumed in 2009. A natural and instinctive musician, Guerrero is a charismatic presence on the podium. He is a strong advocate of new contemporary music and has championed the works of several of America's most respected composers. He has presented eight world premieres with the Nashville Symphony and with the orchestra has earned several GRAMMY awards in recent years, including one in 2016 for his recording of works by Stephen Paulus. In the 2016–17 season, Guerrero will lead performances with the Cleveland Orchestra in Miami, Charlotte Symphony conducting Mendelssohn's Elijah, Yale Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches SymphonieOrchester Berlin, Brussels Philharmonic, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Frankfurter Opernund Museumsorchester, Orchestre National de France, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, and Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. For many years, Guerrero has maintained a close association with the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra in Brazil and will spend three weeks with the orchestra this summer. In addition, he has been re-invited to lead a summer residency with NYO2 — a program of Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute — culminating in a concert with the young musicians alongside the Philadelphia Orchestra at Verizon Hall. Guerrero has recently made debut appearances with the Pittsburgh Symphony and with the Houston Grand Opera conducting Puccini's Madama Butterfly, and, in Europe, with the NDR Hanover, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, and Tonkünstler Orchester. Maestro Guerrero has appeared with many prominent North American orchestras, including those in Baltimore, Boston, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Montreal, Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., among others. He is also familiar to audiences of major summer programs such as the Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles) series and the Blossom Music Festival (Cleveland). He has developed a strong guest conducting profile
in Europe and has worked in recent seasons with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. A passionate proponent of new music and the work of contemporary composers, Guerrero has performed and recorded the works of esteemed American composers including John Adams, John Corigliano, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Michael Daugherty, Roberto Sierra, and Richard Danielpour. With the Nashville Symphony, he has made recordings of music by Danielpour and Sierra for the Naxos label, and of Bela Fleck's Banjo Concerto for Deutsche Grammophone. Guerrero recently developed and guided the creation of the Nashville Symphony's Composer Lab & Workshop initiative, with composer Aaron Jay Kernis, to further foster and promote new American orchestral music. Early in his career, Guerrero worked regularly with the Costa Rican Lyric Opera and has conducted new productions of Carmen, La bohème, and Rigoletto. In 2008, to great acclaim, he gave the Australian premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's one-act opera Ainadamar at the Adelaide Festival. Giancarlo Guerrero has served as the principal guest conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra Miami (2011–2016), music director of the Eugene Symphony (2002–2009), and associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra (1999–2004).
A bo u t Ya l e Philharmo nia
The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale is one of America’s foremost music-school ensembles. The largest performing group at the Yale School of Music, the Philharmonia offers superb training in orchestral playing and repertoire. Performances include an annual series of concerts in Woolsey Hall, as well as Yale Opera productions in the Schubert Theater. The Yale Philharmonia has also performed on numerous occasions in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The orchestra undertook its first tour of Asia in 2008, with acclaimed performances in the Seoul Arts Center, the Forbidden City Concert Hall and National Center for the Performing Arts (Beijing), and the Shanghai Grand Theatre.
peter oundjian Principal Conductor philharmonia staff
jeffrey m. mistri Manager david yi Assistant Conductor
the philharmonia orchestra of yale violin i Laura Park Sophia Mockler Manaka Matsumoto Alyssa Blackstone Elliot Chung Lee Kevin Zheng Michael Tropepe Cheuk Yin Clement Luu Jiwon Sun Moon Joo Kim Renyu Martin Peh Mevlan Mecid violin ii Dae Hee Ahn Rachel Ostler Marina Aikawa Andy Peng Wynton Grant Dhyani Dharmawati Heath Kyung Min Lee Suyoun Han Je Young Kim Chang Hoon Bae viola Julia Clancy Josip Kvetek Wei Peng Alexandra Simpson Yang Li Emily Brandenburg Florrie Marshall Ye In Son cello Allan Hon Justin Park Pall Quinn Kalmansson Yeji Yoo Mingyao Zhao
Ji Young Choi James Rosamilia Nayeon Kim bass Joshua Jay DePoint Kohei Yamaguchi Lee Starovich Jordan Calixto Will Robbins Erez Meyuhass flute Leo Sussman 1 Evan Fojtik 2 Benjamin Morency oboe Lauren Williams 1 Lydia Consilvio 2 Noah Kay Winona V.R. Van Alstyne Timothy Feil clarinet Elisha Willinger 1 Sam Boutris 2 Eric Braley bassoon Fransisco Joubert Bernard 1 Dillon Meacham 2 Hanul Park horn Luke Baker Reese Farnell 1 Matthew Gray Cody Halquist Scott Leger Valerie Sly 2 Joshua Thompson
trumpet Aaron Plourde 1 Jonathan Shadle Nozomi Imamura 2 trombone Grant Futch 2 Eliud Garcia Zachary Haas Alexander Walden William Wortley 1 tuba Joseph Guimaraes timpani Matthew Keown 1 Georgi Videnov 2 percussion Matthew Keown Kramer Milan YoungKyoung Lee Sam Um harp Shin Young Yu
1 2
Principal on Wagner Principal on Shostakovich
administrative assistant Valerie Sly music librarians Mariya-Andoniya Andonova Emily Brandenburg Sophie Cash-Goldwasser Antonia Chandler Allan Hon Bora Kim Laura Park Lauren Williams stage crew Lydia Consilvio Margaret Davis Thomas Duboski Reese Farnell Christopher Garwood Ashley Hale Nozomi Imamura Pall Quinn Kalmansson Matthew Keown YoungKyoung Lee Cheuk Yin Clement Luu Hillary Simms Andrew Stadler Sam Um Georgi Videnov
U p co m ming Eventt s Upc i n g Even JAN 29
JAN 31
FEB 3
ETTORE CAUSA, FRANK MORELLI & BORIS BERMAN Faculty Artist Series Violist Ettore Causa, bassoonist Frank Morelli, and pianist Boris Berman — all members of the YSM faculty — perform on a program that features a duo for bassoon and piano, a duo for viola and bassoon, and a trio. Morse Recital Hall | Sunday | 3 pm free admission YALE BRASS TRIO Faculty Artist Series Pianist Mihae Lee joins the Yale Brass Trio for a program that honors Robert E. Nagel Jr. with performances of Nagel’s Brass Trio, Paul Lansky’s Pieces of Advice, Pierre Gabaye’s Récréation, and more. Allan Dean, trumpet; William Purvis, horn; Scott Hartman, trombone Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 7:30 pm free admission VINCE GIORDANO & THE NIGHTHAWKS Ellington Jazz Series Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, of whom The New York Times has said, “in their hands, jazz is young again, full of ginger and pep,” perform the timeless music of the 1920s and 1930s. Morse Recital Hall | Friday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $20 • Students $10
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